There is known a printing apparatus that performs printing in an ink jet manner while transporting flexible recording medium in a belt-shape along the longitudinal direction thereof (for example, refer to PTL 1). The printing apparatus according to PTL 1 includes a carriage that has a head that discharges ink on the recording medium, and a moving mechanism that has a guide rod that supports the carriage so as to be capable of reciprocally moving along a width direction of the recording medium. In the printing apparatus according to PTL 1, as for the extent of ricketiness between the carriage and the guide rod, there has been a case where the landing position of the ink with regard to the recording medium in a forward path and a backward path of the carriage is not the desired position, and the image quality of the obtained image is lowered. For this reason, the transportation amount of the recording medium when in the forward path, and transportation amount of the recording medium when in the backward path are changed respectively to prevent decrease in the image quality.
Meanwhile, among printing apparatuses, there is a printing apparatus in which, when a carriage reciprocally moves, the printing in the forward path and the backward path respectively includes a first printing area formed at the position overlapped with the carriage from a plane view of the recording medium, and a second printing area formed, in association with the forming of the first printing area, at the position not overlapped with but deviates from the carriage adjacent to the first printing area. In such case, a problem occurs that the second printing areas in the forward path and in the backward path are overlapped with each other, the overlapped portion seems as a line, and the quality of the obtained image is lowered. Therefore, since the decrease in the image quality in this case is caused by the forming of the second printing area, it is not possible to prevent the decrease in the printing apparatus according to PTL 1.